As Military Police Investigators, we have to rotate 24 hour shifts as the "On Duty Investigator." So during that 24 hour period we receive calls from dispatch to every criminal case they receive. The duty investigator has to be near a phone and available. Most of us slept or tried to sleep on the couch at the office with the phone and radio near our heads. Majority of the time we were unsuccessful. A lot of the time we never saw the office for 24 hours. From the time we started our shift to the end of our shift, 0800hrs-0800hrs, we would be going from case to case. The rough part was that about 90% of the cases we had to accept. It was not very often we lateraled the case back to the M.P.'s or passed it off to C.I.D. (Criminal Investigations Command).
One night while trying to catch some needed Zzzzzzzzzz's, I received a telephone call that there was a soldier in the E.R with a bullet hole in his leg. First question out of my mouth was, "Where did it happen?" The dispatcher told be, "Off post." To my joy I cried, "Give it to the locals" (the local law enforcement) and hung up. About ten minutes later the phone rings again. "M.P.I., Investigator Menzies." with annoyance in my voice. "Hey", the familiar voice of the dispatcher said. "It's on post, the locals through it back to you." "Ok" was my disgruntled reply, sleep was not going to happen tonight, "I'm going to the E.R." When I arrived at the E.R. I confirmed with the attending Doctor that the soldier had a small caliber entry and exit wound in his right calf area. The doctor also indicated that the soldier was under anesthesia and not really coherent. I tried to talk to the victim and even though he was groggy, he was not cooperative. I asked to see his cloths and was taken up to the room where they stored his cloths. I looked at his pants. They were Jeans and definitely showed an entry and exit hole on the lower right leg. The entry hole was higher than the exit hole. On the interior of the pants at the exit hole location there was a blood trail that was not vertical with the hole and pant leg to indicate that the victim was standing up. The blood run was more horizontal to the right pant leg indicating that the leg was at an angle to the ground and the shooter. The shooter was pointing down at an angle. I called the on duty C.I.D. Agent and explained the scenario. Because the victim was not cooperative the agent told me they were nor going to take the case. Needless to say I was mad. Why? Because the Army was going to want to know why a soldier was in the E.R. with a bullet hole in his leg and why were we not going to take the case, and "he was not cooperative" was not going to be a satisfactory answer. So I took the case. I called my team leader to explain what happened. He came to the E.R. where we furthered our discussion on the matter. He felt it was a drug deal gone bad. I felt that it wasn't. There was more to the story and the pants seemed to tell of something different. I showed my team leader the pants and what the signs showed. I was going to take the pants as evidence and was told flat out "NO" by my team leader. We argued and argued, but in the military Rank has the final word. Latter he would regret his decision. It was truly an "I told you so" moment. So until then I continued to investigate the incident. In the morning I went back to the hospital to re-interview the victim. He was still uncooperative yet he gave me some information, like he heard a car that sounded like his friends around the time he was shot. He didn't hear the shot. The next story he told me was that he was shooting cans and placed the 22 rifle he had against a tree. The rifle fell over, went off and shot him. The evidence in the pants did not show that but I purposely did not call him on that at the time.
I felt he knew who shot him. So I called his unit and had his whole platoon marched to my office. That was about 45 to 50 soldiers. With the help of my team we started interviewing the platoon members. My strategy was to make everyone so uncomfortable and mad at the victim that just to get relief they would cough up information About a third of the way through the interviews I received a telephone call with a tip. The information I received was interesting. The caller told me that around the last December a soldier arrived at the company area looking for the victim. The soldier was highly intoxicated and in his Class "A"'s (dress greens) that were really disheveled. The called stated that the soldier was from Ft. Gordon Georgia. He thinks the soldier was A.W.O.L.(Absent With Out Leave for less than 30 days) at the time but didn't know for sure. He also gave me a probable name, but he knew the friends unit. I called the unit at Ft. Gordon and after talking with the Platoon Sergeant I found out the soldiers name and that he is currently a deserter (absent for more than 30 days). This was the break that I needed. I then went back to the hospital and talked to the victim. I obtained a little more information than before, but nothing very significant. I went back to the office and let everyone know that I'm looking for this friend. Every morning at 0800hrs we had an Investigators meeting with all of the CID Agents, M.P. Investigators and the Investigative Command, where we would discuss the cases for the last 24 hours. That meeting was always beneficial for leads and solving cases. At this particular meeting, CID told me to drop the case as I was beating a dead horse. Those who know me know I am stubborn and do not like taking no for an answer.
A couple of hours later an Investigator come running down the hall screaming, "Hey, Menzies, you looking for So-n-so?". I looked up surprised and said "Yah?" "Well, he was arrested by a State Trooper on a stolen vehicle charge and they are bringing him to AWOL App" (AWOL Apprehension, they hunt AWOL and Deserters). I was also told he was wanted by CID for car theft from Ft. Gordon, Georgia and the case was referred to an agent in our office in that matter. I went to AWOL App and talked with the MP there who told me he would call me when the soldier arrived. Late in the afternoon the call came in. I went to AWOL App and talked to the soldier and found that he did know our victim. I drove back to the office and went to the CID Agent who was referred the car theft. I asked him that I get first crack at the soldier. He said, NO! I asked if I could sit in and again he said, NO! I was livid. I felt like screaming at the Agent but had to control myself because the Agent out ranked me, number wise I was an E-4(Specialist) and he was an E-7(Sergeant First Class). So I asked him, "When you read him his rights, read him the charge of "Attempted Murder" with the Desertion and Car Theft (actually the charge is "wrongful appropriation of personal property") and see what he does and says. Well he agreed to do this. The next thing you heard was the coir. And boy did he sing. The agent told me that when he heard "Attempted Murder", he jumped out of his seat and said, "Whowh!, whowh!, wait a minute!, wait-a-minute!, Hold on! Then he goes into the story as to how his friend ended up in the hospital with a bullet hole in his leg.
The friend, now a suspect in the shooting, deserted from his unit and stole a car the get here (Ft. Polk, LA). While here he was staying with the victim and his wife. While sitting around drinking beer, they were talking about how they could take "leave", vacation, from the Army and not get charged their accumulated leave. Then the idea came to them, Convalescent Leave. What Convalescent Leave is, when a soldier is significantly hurt, the military will allow the soldier to recuperate at home rather than in the post hospital. When they are allowed to do this they are not charged leave while getting well. That was the answer to their wanting to take time off and not lose leave. What they would do is shoot each other and grabbed the Suspect-victims 22 rifle. So they went to a wooded area that so happened to be on post. Both suspects decided to flip a coin as to who would shoot who first. The Suspect-victim won the toss and was going to get shot first. He sat on a log and stretched out his right leg. Suspect-deserter then stood near the winners out stretched right leg and shot at it. The Suspect-victim was in so much pain he could not return the favor. By the way he was severely bleeding. This scared Suspect-deserter where he drove his buddy home and dumped him on his wife and took off. While speeding down the road was when the State Trooper stopped him for speeding, then found out about the car theft. The wife rushes her now crying in pain husband to the E.R. Well, now you know where I came in.
The next morning after this case closure I attended the usual morning meeting. The question came out of any solved cases. I took my huge case file and slid it hard down the conference table to the CID commander, stood up and said, "Here is your "Dead Horse", it's solved with two Subjects on the charge of Malingering. It was a precious moment. My team leader came to me after the meeting and said that CID would get the solve stat. I told him, "So what, at least we can solve cases they can't. That in it self is satisfaction enough." I later talked with Suspect-victims Commander, explained the case to him and the Commander was going to try and get the Suspect-victim stationed for a long time to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. I never heard what actually what happened as I was shortly there after transferred to the 2nd Division on the ROK
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